


Home, and how to find it

by Ainley_Delgado



Series: Chicagofrey [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, May add canon characters later, Murder, Swearing, breaking the laws of time, but all in all this is a fic about characters, chicagofrey au, ginger abuse, there will be:
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:33:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24049744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ainley_Delgado/pseuds/Ainley_Delgado
Summary: This says "part one" of the Chicagofrey series, but the series is non-linear. This one is about a group of a bunch of chicago detectives and their not-at-all human coroner, based in a post-police society in the not-to-distant future.
Series: Chicagofrey [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1757431
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	1. A prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a retooling of a concept I had before I developed my anti-police views, because I still deeply enjoy detective comedies. Even without police, there will still be murders, and there will still be a need to keep people with a lack of care for human life from harming others.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's a drabble I wrote on Tumblr.

I always liked Chicago. Yes, it was the first place I landed when I left home. But what I really like are little things. 

For example, when the weather conditions and the light pollution interact in a specific way, the sky appears orange. On some of those nights, I climb up to the roof of my terrible apartment, look at the starless sky, and pretend I’m home. Of course, it’s not the same. The sky’s the wrong hue. The traffic’s loud, sirens are blaring. But it gives me solace, at least until Joe’s kicking me to make sure I’m alive. Thank Omega he hasn’t thought to check my pulse, but it shatters the illusion.

Tonight, though, my meditation was interrupted by something a bit more serious: a phone call. Something major was going on a couple blocks north, and they wanted the day shift detectives. At least I don’t sleep much, or I’d be really fucked.


	2. A Stolen Heart: pt. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, an introduction to the other two characters.

It was close enough to walk. Which is always a treat, because I don’t have to beg for a ride from my coworkers or one of my cousins. What wasn’t a treat was the clouds betrayed me and it started to rain in the time it took me to get to the ground floor. And not just a little sprinkle, it was raining hard. Unfortunately, my hair absorbs water like a sponge, and it would probably drip in the suits the CSI folks (the ones like they had on TV, not the scaffolding company) made us wear. Not that they’d know what the hell to do with my DNA anyway. 

Luckily for my curls, detective Elizabeth Calwdwell was going the same way. She drives, one of the few human things I was never able to master. She stopped the car in the middle of the street, a gutsy move she must’ve learned in the suburbs of New Jersey. She rolled down the window, which was just enough time for another car to honk at her before passing.

“Need a lift?” She asked. 

“Yeah, I do. The rain caught me.” I said, before going in the backseat. She started driving again, but not before another honk. 

“People are so impatient around here. It’s been a year and a half and I’m still not used to it.” She said. She’d just gotten her degree when she’d come over for her grandfather’s funeral, and the guy she was living with knocked up another girl. She never looked back, except to complain about urban life.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.” I’ve lived in the city for over a century. I was a teen when we left home, having foreknowledge that it was about to be destroyed yet again, this time left lifeless and barren. 

We arrived, and we pulled over, the street having been blocked off. “Which floor was it again? I can’t remember if it was 203 or 302.” Elizabeth asked, stopping the vehicle.

“302.” I said. Unlike my apartment building, this one bothered to have elevators. I used to be terrified of them when I was younger, boxes hanging by wires. I stopped fearing them around the time I realized it would be a cool story to die in one.

We got changed into the suits to protect the DNA evidence. I still miss the days when I’d just wear a trench coat and some gloves. I’d initially wanted to be a physician, but I found that I had a bit too much empathy to work on the living without giving my lives away. The technician was there, a man named Caleb Sparks. He looked like he was a supermodel or in the chancellery guard. He loved his morning run almost as he loved the rules and regulations for crime scene preservation, and hated being up after midnight. 

“Just cut to the chase, I want to go to bed as much as you do.” I lied. I knew I wasn’t going to get my hour of sleep tonight.

Oddly, he didn’t protest. “The victim was a 47 year old man named Alex Martin. Apparently, his roommate came home, and found him on the floor with his heart literally ripped out of his chest. The paramedics declared him dead on scene.” 

“Holy crap. No wonder they called the dayshift. Rod would’ve fainted at that.” I said. To be fair, he used to faint at the sight of all blood. I still wonder why he didn’t do one of the more pleasant government jobs, like the anti-corruption investigative unit.

Elizabeth gulped at the idea. She’d never seen anything quite as gruesome as what he’d described. She’d only worked for the city for a year, and had only been working crime scenes since Kathleen had gone on maternity leave. 

“Well, let’s get to it.” I said. I’ve seen worse.

The elevator didn’t take too long, which was a blessing. It was silent the whole ride up there. I was thinking about how the hell someone could rip someone’s heart out. It would take a lot of strength. An inhuman amount. 

The elevator door opened. Probably for the best. I went to the apartment, horrified at what I was going to find.

The victim was lying on the floor. The corpse was limp, and shirtless. Not something I’d want  
“Oh my god…” Elizabeth said. Neither she nor Caleb looked too good. 

The first thing I noticed was the cleanness of it all. The heart was cleanly severed from the corpse, and the chest had only a single cut along the center. The roommate was wrong. It wasn’t ripped out, it was cut out. The second thing I noticed horrified me more. 

The blood was orange tinted.

“Fuck.” I said, out loud, which startled my two companions, checking the heart to confirm my suspicions. I’d learned Gallifreyan anatomy before the world went to shit. It only confirmed my fears. 

“46, you say?” I asked Caleb, before realizing the third thing. There was too little blood.

Sure, if it was a human, there’d be that amount of blood. Once the heart is cut out, that’s it for blood coming out actively. But the scene should’ve been covered, as blood would still be pumping for at least a little while. There were two reasons why that would be. 

“Yes, 46 years old.” Caleb responded, but I wasn’t quite paying attention

The first option was that something else killed him, and the cuts were post mortem. But the arms were limp, and there was no other obvious wound.

The second option was much, much worse. Even Time Lords are affected by rigor mortis, especially in the time it takes to cut out one’s heart. 

He could still be alive. 

There are a few ways to check if a Time Lord is truly dead. Traditionally, a questionably dead Time Lord would be left out in the Gallifreyan desert for a couple days to properly die or regenerate. There were machines back home to check for the faintest life signs, but those are gone with the planet. Or I could attempt to make contact. Even the weakest of Time Lords not completely braindead could contact the living if they so choose, if physical contact is also made. That was the problem, physical contact. If I was wrong, Caleb was going to be very annoyed with me.

“Do not stop me Caleb.” I said, sending him the death glare. I kneeled besides the body, and placed my gloved hands on his temples. 

“Contact?” I asked, out loud, closing my eyes, hoping beyond hope this would work.

I heard my coworkers talking, but I wasn’t paying attention.

After what felt like an eternity, but was only 1.2 seconds, I got a response. A telepathic whisper.

_Contact_

He was alive. But for how long?

I knew the theory of kickstarting regeneration, but I’d never done it. I knew I needed skin-to-skin contact. I knew I needed to draw on my own reserves. But I’d never regenerated before, and the best description on how it worked I got from a romance novel the book club read back in ‘84. And Alex might’ve been out of regenerations, and I’d just be burning up his body. Or I might burn my body. But there was no time to worry, only act.

“Elizabeth, watch.” I said, taking off my protective gear.

“What the hell are you doing! You’re going to ruin the crime scene evidence!” Caleb yelled. 

“If this works, we’ll have something a lot more valuable, a witness.” I said, glaring at him yet again. I tried to remember how Lumalna did it for her boyfriend Gian in Hearts of Passion. And I somehow managed to do it, my hand glowing. It was an odd sensation, a bit warm and tingly, but all in all wasn’t too horrible a feeling. Well, at least not compared to what the man in front of me would go through in a minute. I put my hand on his chest, hoping that whatever I gave would be enough. And as the wound in his chest mended itself, I figured it was a success, whether or not he lived. 

The two humans looked awfully bewildered, but I didn’t want them to be hurt by any backlash. “Step back.” I instructed, stepping back myself. The last thing I needed was to be caught in this guy’s artron energy. 

I’d seen regeneration before. One of my cousins did a few years back, and invited me along to watch. “You’ll see what’s in store for you. It’s fucking hell, but it sure beats dying.” She said. The other two, on the other hand…

Caleb was aware of our existence, as his maternal grandmother married one. It was quite scandalous back in the day, to the humans that she’d left a nice young man for a lady, to the Time Lords that a Time Lady would deign to fall in love with a human. They got married the year it was legalized, and his human grandmother died three years later, when he was a baby. He knew I was one, due to the fact that his father worked with me back in the 90’s.

On the other hand, Elizabeth… There are no Time Lords in New Jersey, because New Jersey sucks.

When all was said and done, the man groaned. That was lucky, I don’t think Caleb really was looking forward to seeing boobage. 

“It’s not often I get to save a life.” I said, rather proud of myself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's rather more gruesome than I meant it to be initially.


End file.
